To three men, the location of teen's body was a 9-day-old puzzle crying out for a solution

At 4 a.m. Tuesday, state Department of Corrections officers Joseph Nicholas and Bruce Myers jumped into the truck parked outside Nicholas' Salem County home to begin the two-hour drive to Brick Township.

Myers' 7-month-old bloodhound, Tilda, was already in the back as they pulled out, with State Trooper Brian Trexler and his German shepherd, Taz, in another truck, following close behind.

As dark as the road was, it wouldn't compare to the day ahead, when they planned to retrace the areas where authorities believed the body of 16-year-old Brittney Gregory had been dumped. Hundreds of searchers had gone over the areas in the course of nine days, but perhaps, somehow, they had missed something.

This day would be different.

Nicholas, a 17-year member of the correction department's K-9 unit, has been involved in the state's biggest missing-person cases. Searching for Brittney Gregory, he already had worked the area twice. Each time he took detailed notes, and on Monday he had gotten another update from the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office and the Brick Police Department.

"I had a plan," Nicholas said. "It was just a puzzle, and I just wanted to make sure it was clear. I wanted to put it in my own head that she wasn't there."

Nicholas had called Myers and Trexler to join him. Trexler, a member of the State Police K-9 unit, arranged it through work, while Myers had the day off from his job at the Southern State Correctional Facility in Cumberland County.

"He felt very strongly about it," Myers said of Nicholas. "We were going to find her or we were going to do everything we could to find her."

It was to be Myers' and Tilda's first search, after months of training.

At about 6 o'clock the group reached the first search area, near Exit 88 on the Garden State Parkway. The area had promise, since Brittney lived nearby in Brick and the man charged with her murder, Jack Fuller Jr., had a house a few miles north in Howell.

"I believed a person who was going to do this would do it in his back yard," Nicholas said.

For the next two hours, the men followed Tilda and Taz through the area.

The search brought on "a huge rush of emotions," Myers said. "Are we going to find her? Are we not going to find her? At the same time, how could someone do something like that to a little girl?"

Finding nothing, they got back in their trucks and drove to a second site, in Lakewood between Ridge Avenue and Brook Road and near the Metedeconk River. High-tension power lines split through the bramble of scrub pines, oaks and blueberry bushes.

Walking with an eye on the dogs, the three started in the scrub before turning to the grassy area beneath the power lines.

Then it happened.

At 9:13 a.m., Myers' normally calm bloodhound began to shake over a sandy patch of soil.

Noticing the change, Nicholas asked Myers to walk the dog to an area 20 feet away. Then Trexler brought his dog over to confirm the scent. The German shepherd immediately started digging.

"We didn't know what to feel," Myers said. "It was almost like it was unreal. All of us were nervous. All of us were second-guessing ourselves."

Trexler drove his truck in to secure the scene and Nicholas called the authorities. Once crime scene investigators arrived, the three moved with their dogs to the side. About noon, Brittney's body was unearthed.

At a news conference later in the day to announce Brittney's remains had been found, Nicholas, Myers and Trexler met the girl's aunt, Susan Wood, who hugged and kissed them before leaving.

"This turned out to be a tragic ending," Nicholas said. "But I got a hug and a kiss from the family members, and that meant more to me than anything else in the world. Is it a miracle? I believe it is."

As talk of their success circulated, the three have been inundated with congratulations from friends and colleagues. But they don't want to be thought of as heroes, saying it was a group effort by every person who searched for 10 days in hopes of finding Brittney.

"We all care," Nicholas said. "Nobody wants to see that happen. My department taught me what I know. They gave me the opportunity to be what I am."